1973 Honda CB750 Cafe Racer

Located in Brooklyn, NY, this cafe racer’ed CB750 is a really nice build. I appreciate the fact that the seller has kept the bike fairly simple, with a set of basic cafe modifications. No crazy paint. No super high-dollar parts. Just a black cafe racer.

There is fairly active bidding going on for this bike with 11 bidders already taking the price up to $1,500 with 3 days left.

Cafe Racer Meetups?

A friend of mine went to what was supposed to be a meet up of cafe racer riders in Southern California, and he was going to take photos and write something for the blog. Turns out there were no cafe racers in attendance. Apparently my Sportster would have out cafe’d the entire turnout. Woohoo! /:-\

Anyways, if you want to inform the world of any cafe racer events via this blog, please let me know and I’ll post something in a timely manner as the event approaches. Hopefully, it will have cafe racers in attendance…

Help With A Missing Child (NorCal/Central Valley)

If you live in the area between Fresno, Sacramento, and the Bay Area, please read this, and if you know anything at all, please help. My own daughter is 8 y.o., and I would hate to be in the position of this girl’s parents…

Harley Davidson XLCR (not stock – Yeah!)

Finally! My wish has come true. Someone selling a 1977 HD XLCR with which they valued having a ride-worthy bike more than a “collectible” museum piece. This seller claims to have a motor built out of aftermarket parts (no Harley shite as an original rebuild using those parts didn’t work out so well for the seller). Not only is the engine gone through, but it has Ohlins shocks, Progressive fork springs, and stainless steel brake lines.

Now for the bad news. The stock drag-bar was replaced with some funky chromed pseudo-superbike bars (they actually look a bit taller than that). That’s it. There doesn’t appear to be any other bad news. And the auction is currently only at $5,500 with two days left (reserve not yet met). So if you are willing to replace the bars with something more suitable, or if the higher bars are more to your liking, this might be a perfect XLCR for the discerning AMF collector or aficionado! Good luck with the auction!

What makes a cafe racer a cafe racer?

Often times, when writing about one particular cafe racer or another, I end up complaining about some missing piece. It might be a bike that is done except for rear-sets, or maybe the bars haven’t been swapped out for clip-ons or clubmans, or maybe my friend Paul complains in a comment about the JC Whitney mufflers gracing some otherwise nicely-built cafe racer.

But what it really comes down to, is that each of us thinks about cafe racers in a slightly different way. We all pick different bikes to build, and we each pick a different set of componentry to graft on to it. The net result is a cafe racer.

To try to get to the root of this issue, I made the little poll below to try and figure out what everyone who reads this blog thinks are the most important things that make a cafe racer a cafe racer. I set the poll so you can only choose one thing, so pick what you think is most important when building a cafe racer. Have fun, and let me know what you think…

Show a fellow blogger some love…

A friend of mine has left me in charge of his blog while he’s busy with some other stuff (themotoworld.wordpress.com). If you are interested in motorcycles, racing, adventure touring or motorcycle camping, show him some love and visit the site. I posted a couple of things over the weekend including a poll about your favorite adventure touring motorcycle. I’d love to see what kind of adventure tourer I should be thinking about as my KTM LC4 Adventure R wears out…

Steve “Carpy” Carpenter is holding a garage sale on eBay…

For those of you who follow the world of cafe racers, you probably know of Steve “Carpy” Carpenter. For those of you who don’t, he’s a transplanted Brit who has got a shop in Southern California from which he builds some of the best cafe racers on the planet. He primarily uses the CB750 SOHC bikes as his starting point. Over the last couple of days, I posted two items that he had listed before I figured out he has a whole bunch of stuff up on eBay. The link in the photos below goes to his “View seller’s other items” page on eBay. It looks like he’s clearing out some extra CB750 parts (plus the CB550 I posted yesterday). Good luck if you try bidding…

1976 Honda CB550 Cafe Project

From the extraordinary cafe builder Steve “Carpy” Carpenter comes this “I’m clearin’ out the garage” project bike up for sale on eBay right now. It’s a 1976 Honda CB550 with a bikini fairing, aftermarket seat, and a need for a good home with a patient mechanic. Lots of parts are missing, but the price is right ($152 with 22 hours left in the auction). Maybe you have an extra set of carbs, a pipe, some brakes calipers, and miscellaneous other parts sitting around? Good. Then this is the bike for you…

So you want to start a cafe racer website?

I admit, when I started this blog I wanted to register caferacer.com and host the blog there. I couldn’t get it, and settled for ilovecaferacers.com (the site isn’t functional yet, so you don’t need to check it out at this point in time). Then, I noticed an incoming link to this blog today from caferacer.com. I clicked on it to see where the link was coming from, and lo-and-behold, the domain name caferacer.com is parked and for sale. “How much is the asking sale price,” you might ask? I’ll tell you…

$82,100 at buydomains.com.

Whatever. I think I’ll stick with my WordPress blog.

Honda CR750 Replica

Here’s a beautiful bike for your perusal. It’s a 1972 Honda CB750 that has been built into a CR750 replica. Very nice!!!

It’s up for auction right now on eBay, and the starting price is just under $4K. Six days left, and zero bidders so far…